Why don’t we eat oxen rather than beef?

Answers

The terms with which we classify members of the subfamily Bovinae, or cattle, can get pretty specific. Technically, any meat that comes from bovines is considered beef, this would include oxen. This aside, people do eat oxen sometimes. As far as why we don’t eat it regularly, or even at all, is a matter of practicality. An ox is labeled as such because it has been kept for drafting purposes, in other words, to be worked. This may conjure images of oxen pulling a cart. Because we have tractors and modern machinery, many job positions that oxen would have filled are taken. So basically, oxen aren’t as common, and are used more for working than for eating in the first place. This is why we eat beef, or younger cattle around two years of age that haven’t been worked.